1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910451756103321

Autore

Roberts Celia <1968->

Titolo

Messengers of sex : hormones, biomedicine, and feminism / / Celia Roberts [[electronic resource]]

Pubbl/distr/stampa

Cambridge : , : Cambridge University Press, , 2007

ISBN

1-107-17829-0

1-281-08534-0

9786611085346

1-139-13196-6

0-511-34223-3

0-511-48917-X

0-511-34171-7

0-511-34113-X

0-511-34276-4

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (xviii, 230 pages) : digital, PDF file(s)

Collana

Cambridge studies in society and the life sciences

Disciplina

612.6

Soggetti

Hormones, Sex

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Title from publisher's bibliographic system (viewed on 05 Oct 2015).

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Nota di contenuto

Introduction: Feminism, bodies and biological sex; Part I. Hormone Histories: 1. Folding hormonal histories of sex; Part II. Hormonal Bodies: 2. Articulating endocrinology's body; 3. Activating sexed behaviours; Part III. Hormone Cultures: 4. Elixirs of sex: hormone-replacement therapies and contemporary life; 5. The messaging effects of HRT; 6. Hormones in the world; Conclusion: Hormones as provocation.

Sommario/riassunto

Since the early twentieth century, hormones have commonly been understood as 'messengers of sex'. They are seen as essential to the development and functioning of healthy reproductive male and female bodies; millions take them as medications in the treatment of fertility, infertility and ageing.  However, in contemporary society, hormones are both disturbed and disturbing; invading our environments and bodies through plastics, food and water, environmental estrogens and other



chemicals, threatening irreversible, inter-generational bodily change. Using a wide range of sources, from physiology textbooks to popular parenting books and pharmaceutical advertisements, Celia Roberts analyses the multiple ways in which sex hormones have come to matter to us today. Bringing feminist theories of the body into dialogue with science and technology studies, she develops tools to address one of the most important questions facing feminism today: how is biological sex conceivable?